


But Gravity, Love Strangely May Defy

by mzhlf



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Mental Health Issues, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:32:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mzhlf/pseuds/mzhlf
Summary: In which Astra tries her absolute hardest not to care about people.It doesn't go well.





	But Gravity, Love Strangely May Defy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kendrickhier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrickhier/gifts).



> This is based on the following submission by the wonderful kendrickhier to supergirlprompts on tumblr:
> 
> General Danvers + pretending not to date, like, the opposite of the fake relationship trope
> 
> The title is taken from The Reign Of Kindo - Symptom Of A Stumbling.

Humans compare mourning to recovering from a wound.

Astra, who has experienced everything from superficial grazes to a kryptonite sword through the chest, thinks it’s a somewhat flawed comparison.

Skin closes over. Scabs crumble away into scars that unpucker and fade. Bruises shift through a rainbow of colors before dimming away entirely.

An old scar might ache and itch. Maybe it becomes a souvenir or even a trophy. _I survived. I persevered. I lived to tell the tale._ It is a tangible pictograph, a history for curious hands. Maybe it becomes indiscernible after awhile, like a stone tablet inscription eroding away over time. Maybe eventually, it’s forgotten.

Mourning is unlike any wound she has ever received. She wonders, though, if it’s similar to losing a limb.

On Krypton, prosthetic limbs were virtually indistinguishable from their organic counterparts. But on longer, more dangerous missions, light-years away from Krypton’s high tech medical facilities, she’d seen soldiers make do with whatever crude materials were available at the time. It was quite common, even after months of recovery, for an amputee to experience tingling or pain where a limb once was, almost as if it were still present.

Psychologically, Astra experiences something similar.

Certain things are so ingrained in her, so essential to her sense of identity, that occasionally, she forgets that they're gone.

Here, a tall brunette in a blue dress. 

There, an aroma so similar to old Von-Ka’s bittersweet layered pastries that it makes her mouth water.

A familiar silhouette, or laughter she almost recognizes.

Astra has enough phantoms residing in her brain to fill a city.

Oh, she keeps up appearances for the most part. Kara makes an effort to visit her at her DEO-funded apartment. Alex occasionally checks in and restocks some of her necessities, although she never stays for long.

Astra manages to get by, even if conversations with Kara remind her all too often of just how much she’s missed, and just how little she knows this grown-up version of her. Even if business cards for one Dr. Shizuka Mori, PsyD, have a way of conveniently falling out of Alex’s pockets during her visits. A cursory search on the internet reveals a former Stanford professor with several TED talks whose areas of expertise include addiction and grief.

Astra unthinkingly tucks it into the pocket of her brown leather jacket. Such measures are unnecessary, even if she’s submerged in a mental fog too heavy to call boredom and too aimless to call despair. 

She doubts a psychologist, even a renowned expert in her field by Earth’s primitive standards, will have anything to say to her that she hasn’t considered already.

To say that Astra’s doing great would be a lie. But she gets by.

That is, until the day it all boils over.

\--

As it turns out, Kara’s upstairs neighbor looks exactly like her and Alura’s former xenobiology professor. Astra sees her on the stairs one Friday evening as she’s leaving after game night, and immediately remembers Shara On-Da.

On-Da… was not accepted into the Science Guild for her social aptitude or sound judgment. On no occasion was this more apparent than the day she raised a few eyebrows in academic circles when she made her entire class lick freshly laid Neurochian eggs, known for the hallucinogenic secretions coating their iridescent shells.

“Unfetter your mind and touch the face of All Creation,” she said.

“It will be fun,” she said. 

Rao, _was_ it.

The walls sang softly for days. Tiny silver women descended from the stars to weave fragrant garlands into Astra’s hair. Alura befriended a boot. Several of their classmates stranded themselves on Daxam. And, dear Rao, this middle-aged stranger skipping down the steps is even wearing a dress in that particular shade of radioactive yellow that On-Da was especially fond of.

Astra only stops staring when Alex tugs on her arm, and absent-mindedly makes a mental note to tell Alura about this encounter. Any recollection of On-Da is certain to evoke laughter.

But just as the corners of her lips begin to lift in delight...

Truck engines. 

Ringtones.

Droning human chatter.

All sound within a ten mile radius that she briefly managed to tune out breach her awareness once again, so foreign, so deafening, so _alien_ , that it shocks her back into reality.

And once again, her sister is nothing more than an acute, yawning absence. Once again, Krypton is nothing more than a surrealistic void.

It hits her, then, just how much of her life is lost.

Astra the Sister, gone. Astra the Wife, gone. Astra the General, never to command an army again. Astra the Aunt, holding together pieces of a relationship they’ve barely begun to repair. And who is Astra the Kryptonian without a Krypton to return to?

It seems her whole life has been defined by passion and idealism. Getting top marks at the military academy. Becoming one of the youngest Generals in Kryptonian history. Designing and programming Project Myriad from nothing. Letting her unflinching desire to protect her family and planet drive her further and further into extremism. Time after time, choosing what she felt was right over what she knew was easy.

And yet it all amounts to nothing. 

Astra is adrift.

Superfluous.

It is a seemingly inconsequential moment, this wordless encounter at the foot of the stairs, but the despair that ripples from it threatens to swallow her whole.

Then she remembers that Alex and James are next to her, and that Kara can see her from the doorway, so rather than succumbing to the weight of worlds on her shoulders, rather than letting it bring her to her knees, she just holds her head high and keeps walking. 

\--

Rather than walking straight home as she originally planned, of course, she takes a detour into a local alien bar.

\---

And when she staggers out just after 2 A.M., the sidewalk is undulating ever so slightly.

She actually finds it kind of soothing at the time. Apropos, for a night that began with remembering Shara On-Da.

\--

It’s not until 7 A.M., when she’s miserably hugging the toilet while her stomach takes its time to decide whether it's finished purging itself, that Astra starts to actually process this whole mess of emotions. 

The real issue, she decides, is that she cares too much. Caring is the most foolish choice that anyone can possibly make.

It’s a bit like building a fortress on a foundation of quicksand. No one with a Kryptonian General’s keen tactical mind should ever recommend it.

The problem is that people are unreliable. Even the noblest causes are tarnished where they are involved. They sully everything they touch. They’re greedy, short-sighted, petty and ill-informed, and what’s worse, they die. 

Hence, as she walks to a nearby grocery store that morning, she sets a very realistic goal for herself: 

\--

**Do not care about people.**

\--

It’s simple. It's sensible. It’s smart. And if her past has any bearing on her future, it might just save her from immeasurable anguish and heartbreak. In other words, it is the perfect plan.

Astra has just finished nodding resolutely - because that’s what one does when one makes resolutions - when an empty Coca-Cola can rolls past her on the side of the road. 

Unthinkingly, she walks back a few feet and picks it up.

(It’s not that she cares about the children on this planet, mind you.)

(There’s a recycling bin just outside the store which just so happens to be on her way.)

\-- 

Over time, Astra adds exactly three… _clarifications_ , to her new rule. Other resolution-makers out there might call it cheating, but she has always believed in adjusting course to accommodate previously unacknowledged insight.

After all, life is a complex and unpredictable thing, and inflexibility serves absolutely no one.

The High Council was inflexible. Look where it got them.

Which is why, not even five days after that fateful weekend, she... adapts.

\--

**Do not care about people*.**

***Kara is the one exception.**

\--

Because of _course_ she’s overcome with terror when Kara gets stung by a giant, carnivorous, cow-like creature with venomous, skyscraper-lengthed tentacles for an udder. Of _course_ she swoops in to face it alone when reinforcements are still two minutes away. Of _course_ she pries her Little One from the beast’s hungry clutches right after turning it into what humans might call hamburger.

Despite a great deal of lecturing from Alex after the fact about recklessly endangering her own life, it was a perfectly calculated risk.

Almost negligible, really. 

And what kind of a horrible aunt would she be if she didn’t forgo sleep to sit with Alex and J’onn by her niece’s bedside?

Spending her whole weekend trying to mimic the taste and texture of Alura's soup so that Kara can have a taste of home while she recovers is really just par for the course.

Sure, she goes through five Dutch ovens, ninety-seven pounds of human ingredients and more than twenty four hours’ worth of failed experiments, but she’s been craving it, so rest assured, she's doing it for purely selfish reasons. 

It means nothing that for the first time since they met in that dimly lit warehouse, Alex looks at her like she finally trusts her. It means nothing that she relaxes more, or that her brow wrinkles endearingly when she tries to remember the pronunciations of all the Kryptonian flavors they’re attempting to replicate.

And when Alex teases her about the lengths to which she’ll go just to make a convincing version of this recipe, there’s a subtle softness at the edges of her expression that Astra wants to memorize with her fingers.

But surely that's just a figment of her imagination.

For the briefest of moments, she wants to be bothered by Alex’s knowing smirk. There’s an automatic retort perched on the tip of her tongue - _do not presume to know me_ \- but she can’t bring herself to say it because Alex is _right_.

Alex is right. Kara is the only real family she has left. They are the sole survivors of Krypton. There's Kal-El, technically, but they have no shared history, no common memory of a home that no longer exists. He might as well be a metahuman.

Astra knows immediately that she cannot just decide to stop caring about Kara. And even if she had that ability, even if it’s as simple as entering an override code and pushing a button, she just wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it. Not when she knows how much it would hurt her.

Because regardless of whether Astra deserves it, Kara loves her anyway. And they’ve both lost enough already. 

So, she allows herself one exception. Because how could she not? 

\--

The humans and the Martian, on the other hand, decisively fall into that vast category of People She Has Promised Herself Not To Care About.

And by all logic, that should be very easy. Their language, culture, mannerisms and lifestyles are all alien to her. They have absolutely nothing in common.

Well. They do have  _one_ thing in common, and unfortunately for Astra, it's kind of an important overlap.

Because where Kara goes, Kara’s friends follow. And where Kara goes, Astra follows. So, whether she likes it or not, Astra often finds herself in the company of Kara’s friends.

It wouldn't do Kara any good to needlessly antagonize them. So, naturally, she allows for an ongoing series of innocuous interactions. One might even call them superficially friendly.

At first she does it solely for Kara, but soon she arrives at another valuable piece of insight.

\--

**Do not care** about people*.**

***Kara is the one exception.**

****It doesn’t strictly count as caring if there are sound reasons behind an action that one might normally interpret as caring.**

\--

So what if she remembers their birthdays and favorite entertainers and the names of all their loved ones? Good memory and a keen sense of observation are key to being successful in the military.

So what if she understands why Winn has the hardest time trusting her out of any of them, and listens to James’ hopes of making a contribution and doing something that matters, and sits in companionable silence with J’onn when memories refuse to be stifled? So what if she makes a conscious effort to stop her eyes, hands, and body from gravitating toward Alex whenever she enters the room because she’s so brave, beautiful, and formidable? 

It doesn't mean she _cares_ , for Rao’s sake. It just means that she’s exceptionally good at not antagonizing people when she wants to be.

If anything, it is an excellent sign that her aptitude in infiltration tactics and team leadership has not declined during her years among the less savory elements of Fort Rozz.

Maybe one day, the DEO might trust her to command her own squadron, or to perform intelligence gathering on rival organizations. Wouldn't that be nice.

So, building some goodwill with the people she relies on during missions? That’s not going against the rules. That’s just planning ahead.

And it's not as if there's anything out of the ordinary about setting aside time each weekend to follow Winn’s eleven-page regimen of pop culture consumption for seamless integration into human culture. Or buying him a hand-carved limited edition Luke Skywalker replica on the anniversary of his father’s arrest as a tacit reassurance that his family’s dark history need not define him. Or sharing the bottle of aged Kryptonian whiskey she'd been saving with J’onn after apprehending a snake-like alien who had devoured his own children. Or correcting anyone who refers to James as Jimmy. Or planning her outfits days in advance in preparation for lunch with Alex. Which just so happens to be most days. Including weekends. And there’s absolutely nothing out of the ordinary either about bringing Alex freshly picked flowers from remote regions of the world just to watch fondly as her smile puts them all to shame. That’s just what perfectly detached aunts of friends, girlfriends, sisters, or surrogate daughters do. 

Sure, she wouldn’t hesitate to die for any of them. That’s just being a good teammate. 

And if she takes half an hour to hug the crying young boy she rescues from the burning house, or saves a couple of kidnapping victims during one of her solar flares? Well. That’s just what Kara would do.

By Rao, Astra really _excels_ at this not caring about people business! She’s adapted so well to this new, dispassionate approach to life that she wonders why she didn't try it much sooner.

\--

A year or so into her employment at the DEO, they conspire to destroy a homegrown anti-alien terrorist organization. The group is worryingly well-equipped: rumor has it they are supported by Lord Technologies. This is, of course, unprovable.

The night before their planned attack, Alex kisses her. 

It’s not particularly passionate, just a warm, press of lips that lasts four seconds or so, and yet it still manages to steal the breath from Astra's lungs. 

“Don’t be a hero. Alright?” Alex says as she pulls back. “No matter what happens, you have to come back in one piece.”

Astra brushes a hand over her cheek and drinks in Alex’s features with something akin to wonder. “I wish I could promise that.”

“I know.” Alex leans into her touch, and rather than argue with a sentiment Astra suspects Alex herself is intimately familiar with, she simply pulls Astra closer. Close enough for them to share the same space. Close enough for Alex’s lips to brush lightly across Astra’s cheek on their way to her ear.

“So, no promises. But how about an incentive?” Astra feels the air from her words vibrating against the shell of her ear. It causes goosebumps to spread over her skin. Alex slips her arms around her waist, and Astra melts into her embrace.

“I… I wouldn’t be opposed,” Astra breathes, raking her fingers through Alex’s hair and capturing her lips again.

\-- 

“This isn’t courtship,” Astra warns her hours later as they lay in bed facing one another, taking a moment to catch their breath. The tremors haven't even fully worn off yet, but already Astra’s starting to rationalize.

\--

**Do not care** about people*.**

***Kara is the one exception.**

****It doesn’t strictly count as caring if there are sound reasons behind an action*** that one might normally interpret as caring.**

*****Even if it looks suspiciously identical to courtship, it’s not actually courtship unless the people involved specifically acknowledge it as such.**

\--

Their hands bridge that electric, six-inch gap between them, unwilling to stop touching even as Alex processes her words. Astra likes to think she would normally have phrased it more tactfully, but several hours of intensely tender debauchery has loosened her tongue.

“I know.” Alex says and the look in her eyes is so understanding, _affectionate_  even, that Astra wonders if she somehow misheard.

She wets her lips. She sighs. She steels herself. And she pushes forward.

“Alex, you are… the closest thing to perfection that I have ever known. But you must understand that certain people are simply not meant for intimate connections.”

“Right,” Alex says without even a hint of judgment, tracing the smooth outline of the scar in the middle of her chest. “It’s that whole… philosophy of yours, right? The best way to avoid getting hurt is to not be vulnerable in the first place.”

Astra considers it for a second and nods. It feels oddly jarring to hear the sentiment echoed back to her in Alex’s voice. “I - yes, that’s right.” Astra stumbles over her words a little as Alex lightly runs one blunt fingernail over the middle of the scar. “Does it not make a certain degree of sense?”

Alex continues her exploration with that same unreadable expression. “I suppose.” 

And, as if sensing Astra's frustration, her mouth curls into this infuriating little smirk and that expression, combined with her gentle touches along that raised, elongated blemish, the one that she created, produces a warmth that slips through Astra’s ribcage and squeezes her heart. Her pulse quickens. She swells and reignites, consumed by a compulsion to move against her until she and Alex are burned into each other’s skin forever.

Astra pushes herself up to her elbow and presses Alex back. The fit together perfectly, limbs, torsos and hips already operating on muscle memory, as if they’ve done this for years. “Then you know this can never be anything more than a dalliance,” she murmurs into Alex’s parted lips.

“Of course,” Alex agrees, and if any amount of sadness flickers over her face, the emotion is quickly lost when her hand dips below Astra’s torso and she swallows Astra’s gasp. 

\--

As it turns out, Astra does return in one piece.

And like many bona-fide cynics adverse to emotional attachment, she becomes something of a pleasure-seeker.

Looking back on it, this has always been inevitable.

Astra tries many Earth cuisines at Kara’s behest and finds most of them surprisingly agreeable. She watches movie and TV recommendations from Winn, and knowing the significance Luke Skywalker has to Winn, Astra seems to have found a similar sort of resonance in Warehouse 13’s H.G. Wells. Winn tells her that this is called “stanning”.

The point being, Astra likes many things that humans enjoy. Add in the fact that it’s been _years_ since she indulged her carnality, and it stands to reason that sooner or later, Astra would make a habit of fucking humans.

Which, she distantly thinks as she grabs a fistful of Alex’s hair and pushes her face into the mattress, might actually be her favorite Earth pastime yet. She wants to imprint the little noises Alex makes into memory as she sinks into her from behind. And how her pulse jumps beneath Astra’s teeth while Astra grinds against the back of her thigh and purrs tender obscenities into her kiss-bruised neck. 

The weeks after the mission sees Astra familiarize herself with Alex in all sorts of ways, against all manners of surfaces, with varying degrees of vigor depending on how many hours they’ve spent worshiping each other. Their versatility as fighters translates seamlessly into other areas. And oh, Astra can spend entire _days_ taking Alex and giving herself over to her until the delicious friction between them is all she knows. Standing up, laying down, on the counter, arms braced, knees wide open, fingernails making putty out of cement walls, cheek against the sparring mat, ass over pillow. Between scratch marks and lacerations, buckling knees and swollen mouths, she knows Alex’s body every bit as intimately as she knows her own.

Which is why she knows exactly how close Alex is. Astra’s kisses become softer and she watches, fascinated, as Alex falls apart around her fingers. Her grip in her hair loosens into a gentle caress, and after the tremors cease, she eases out slowly and smiles into their kiss.

Even as she's still recovering from the intensity of that moment, Alex twists to the side. And with very little warning, Astra is flat on her back with Alex grinning triumphantly down at her. Her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is racing, the pupils of her big brown eyes are blown wide open as she pants down at her with something darker than lust and softer than possessiveness, and Astra thinks for the sixteenth time that hour _Rao, she is so beautiful_. 

So “fucking humans” _plural_ might be a bit of an exaggeration, because how could she notice anyone else while Alex is within a couple of light-years of her vicinity? Why should she settle for anything less than what she already has? It’s nothing but common sense, really. 

So they share picnics on the roofs of skyscrapers in foreign cities, and kiss between missions and after work and every time one of them gets up to use the restroom in the middle of a game or a movie. It’s nothing but a pursuit of simple pleasures.

So there’s more and more of Astra’s things at Alex’s apartment while Astra’s is barely lived in, until one day, she finally lets the lease expire. It’s nothing but convenience.

So they actually talk more than they screw, and make each other laugh, and kiss wetly to slow music, and hold each other after nightmares of Krypton or Kryptonite swords. It’s nothing but companionability between roommates with very, very special benefits. 

So maybe Alex is in the running right next to Kara for Astra’s favorite person in the entire Rao-forsaken universe. So maybe Astra weeps when Alex gets hurt, and keeps vigil by her bedside, paler and more spiritless than even Alex herself, and silently begs her to wake up. It’s nothing but -

\-- 

“Aunt Astra? We, um, we should probably talk.”

Astra peers up at Kara and fails to muster up a smile.

Kara sits down next to her and carefully slips her hand into Astra’s. “I just spoke with Dr. Rasal, and she’s almost certain that Alex will make a full recovery.”

Indescribable relief floods her bloodstream. Kara’s face blurs in front of her as Astra’s eyes fill with tears she thought she had depleted. But before she can really give into that feeling, Kara gives her hand a gentle squeeze. “That, that wasn’t all I wanted to say.” Kara’s tone is almost apologetic.

Astra brushes her tears away and allows her to continue.

“Look, I don’t, I don’t really know the details, of everything that’s going on. Between you and my sister I mean.”

Astra tiredly closes her eyes. “Oh, Little One. Alex and I, we’re not - ”

“Not dating. I know,” Kara says quickly. “So you’ve told me, and Alex, and everyone else, again and again. But, can I be totally honest with you?” 

Astra hides away a frisson of anxiety by willing her face to be expressionless and nods once. 

Kara bites her lip and looks down at their clasped hands. 

“The thing is, Alex’s childhood ended when she was barely a teen. Mom’s work kept her busy. Then with Dad gone, she had to support all three of us, so most of the actual parenting fell to her.”

Astra gives Kara’s hand a consoling squeeze, but she powers on. “I think she kinda resented me at first, I mean... my arrival _did_ pretty much derail her life overnight. But Alex was there for me. Even, even when she didn’t want to be, and eventually, she came around. Over the years I’ve seen her worried for me, patient with me, protective of me, proud of me, encouraging of me. _Furious_ with me occasionally.

“But... I’ve never once seen her happy for herself. That is, until you.”

Oh. _Oh._ Astra is struck momentarily speechless. Which is just as well, because Kara has more to say. 

“At first I thought it might have been because you care about me just as much as she does, so in a way it’s like she has someone to share that burden with now, but my god Astra, the way she _talks_ about you, and _smiles_ around you… 

“Alex _loves_ you. And I know you, Aunt Astra. I’ve known you since I was a baby, and I think, I think you love her too.”

The sound of Kara’s voice is replaced with a charged silence. Astra looks into her eyes, irrationally terrified that if she blinks, or if there are any cracks in her expression, Kara will see that old, insurmountable guilt oozing like tar just beneath the surface. Guilt that takes the shape of a lost twin sister; a proud and noble race, well on its way to extinction; a husband falling backward onto the desert sands, his heat-damaged face rendered almost unrecognizable by Astra's heat vision after she killed him to protect Kara.

Because that’s what happens to people she loves. She lets them down, or fails to convince them of what’s necessary, or murders them by her own hand.

Astra breaks eye-contact and pulls her hand away from Kara’s. But rather than let her retreat, Kara leans in a little and gently touches her knee.

“My advice? Talk to someone. As much as you probably think humans are weird… you’d be surprised at how many things are actually universal.”

Astra huffs out a humorless laugh, skeptical of the idea that anything could be achieved through simply 'talking to someone', but Kara goes in for the kill.

“Isn't it worth a shot at least? For Alex?”

Astra glances back at her - and there she is, the icon of hope that National City calls Supergirl, armed with nothing but understanding and wisdom far beyond her years. Not asking, not begging, not demanding, but simply believing in her better angels. _Knowing_ that she will do the right thing. 

It’s uncannily similar to the face she wore as a child when she knew that Aunt Astra will give her sweets.

Incidentally, it’s a face Astra has never been able to say no to.

She breathes out a sigh through her nose, suppresses the urge to roll her eyes when the corners of Kara’s mouth tick up ever so slightly, and reaches into the pocket of her brown leather jacket.

And there, she finds a slightly crumpled business card.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, there's my first attempt at fanfic in 5+ years. Loved it? Hated it? Not so thrilled about a specific part? Wonderful! Please leave a comment.
> 
> I am always looking to improve my writing, so constructive criticism is more than welcome.


End file.
